Harness Racing

New to Harness Racing, or a trotting aficionado? Either way, Racenet has you covered.

Much like the other racing codes, Australia has a long and proud history when it comes to harness racing. With nearly 2,000 harness meetings held across the country every year, Australia is one of the world’s leading jurisdictions for trotters and pacers.

Racenet is committed to bringing you everything you need to ensure you can make the best betting decisions on the trots.

Find more information about Harness Racing below, and remember to stay tuned to Racenet for all your harness racing news, views, tips and form.

Harness Racing Fields

If you want to do the best form analysis, you need access to the fields as early as possible. Racenet is working on bringing you all the harness racing fields as soon as they’re published: get the jump on the market and find yourself a winner.

Harness Racing Form Guide

Racenet has been delivering the internet’s best form guide for Australian horse racing for over a decade, and now we’re turning that expertise to harness racing. The full harness racing form guide will soon be available online with Racenet.

Harness Racing Results

The Racenet website will soon bring you all the harness results both old and new: everything from the race that just finished to everything else in recent history. Stay tuned, this new feature will be available very soon!

Harness Racing News

Racenet has long been the home for the best racing news, views, previews and reviews. Our harness racing news coverage will be no different, and keep you up to date with all the latest goings-on across the trotting world.

Harness Racing Tips

Need a helping hand? Racenet brings you expert harness racing tips and previews to help you find a winner.

Harness Racing Stats

Racing is a numbers game: get Australian harness racing stats for all the trotters, pacers, drivers, trainers and tracks, and make informed betting decisions.

Harness Pacers

Up to 90% of the harness racing horses in Australia are pacers, including current stars like Lennytheshark and Chicago Bull. The pacing gait has the horse’s legs moving together according to the side of the horse’s body: the two left legs move together at the same time, and then the two right legs move together.

Harness Trotters

There’s a lot fewer harness trotters in Australia (as opposed to pacers), though they are allowed to enter pacers’ events as well as their own. A trotter’s gait features the two legs diagonally opposed to each other moving forward together simultaneously: the front left leg moves with the rear right leg, and the front right leg moves with the rear left leg.

Harness Trainers

Like any racing code, perhaps the most important person to your horses’ success is the trainer. The most successful harness trainer (in terms of prizemoney) in Australia in the 2016/17 season was Western Australian Gary Hall Snr, who won over $3.5 million and trained almost 200 winners, including 82 metro winners. He was followed by Victorians Emma Stewart ($2.95 million) and David Aiken ($2.69 million).

Harness Drivers

The Hall family’s achievements don’t stop in the training ranks! Hall’s son, Gary Jr, won more metro races as a harness driver than anybody else – nationally – across the 2016/17 season.

In terms of total wins, Victorian Chris Alford led the way for the season with 303 winners, also leading the prizemoney table with a whopping $4 million in stakes won. Next was Queenslander Shane Graham with 255 winners, followed by South Australian pair Greg Sugars (242 wins) and the top female driver, Danielle Hill, with 211 wins.

Harness Racing Tracks

Form Geelong to Geraldton, Australia has over 90 harness racing tracks dotted across the width and breadth of the country.

From your local country track to the bright lights of the state-of-the-art Tabcorp Park at Melton, Victoria, Racenet covers every meeting at every track in Australia, across all states.

Harness Racing History

The first harness race in Australia was held in Parramatta in 1810. The race was won by a horse named ‘Miss Kitty’

The first Western Australian harness race was held at Fremantle, in 1834.

The Tasmanian harness race was held at Launceston, in 1844.

The first organised harness meeting in Australia was held on Flemington Racecourse in 1860, with the feature event offering a purse of 100 sovereigns.

The first dedicated harness racing club in Australia was formed in 1861 – the Ballarat and Creswick Trotting Club in Victoria.

The first dedicated harness racing track in Australia was opened in 1882 at Elsternwick Park in Melbourne.

The first harness racing meeting under lights was held all the way back in 1890, at the site of Harold Park Paceway in Glebe, New South Wales. It was hugely successful and paved the way for more night meetings, which enjoyed strong attendances. Australian harness racing has had a strong night racing presence since.

The New South Wales government banned unorganised racing in 1902, leading to the establishment of the New South Wales Trotting Club to oversee the sport in the state. The club’s first meeting was held that year, also at the site of Harold Park Paceway.

The first pacer to break the two-minute mile mark in Australia was Avian Derby, in 1952.

The mobile barrier was introduced at a Harold Park meeting in 1956, however was ruled unsafe after just two races. It would take a further nine years of development before it was reintroduced successfully in 1965.

Maori’s Idol became the first trotter in Australia to break the two-minute barrier in 1977, at a meeting at Moonee Valley.

In 1977, 1978 and 1980, Pure Steel became the first Australia pacer to win the AG Hunter Cup three times, and would go on to become the first horse to win $500,000 prizemoney in Australia.

In 1983, Gammalite Australia-bred horse to win $1 million in prizemoney.

The horse with the most wins in Australian history remains Can Smoke, with 120 wins during the 1980s and 1990s.

New Zealand horse Our Sir Vancelot was the first to win three straight Inter Dominion Pacing Championships, triumphing in 1997, 1998 and 1999.

Blacks A Fake became the first four-time Inter Dominion Championship winner, in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2010.